Touching history and making community. The memory of the 1980 Turkish military coup in the 12 September Museum of Shame

This contribution draws on ethnography conducted in Istanbul to analyse the Museum of Shame, an amateur exhibition dedicated to the memory of leftist militants who were victims of state violence following the 1980–1983 military coup in Turkey. This museification is the work of a group of ex-revolutionaries and can be considered a cultural practice that challenges statist historiography and creates a mnemonic community. By exhibiting the possessions of murdered militants, it inscribes their personal experiences into collective frames and fosters intergenerational transmission. Its temporality reflects the ethos of the revolutionary fighter, turning mourning into a political statement. However, though this museum practice allows the community to become an agent of history, it is unable to encompass the varying experiences of ex-militants. Its aestheticization of violence and its moral injunctions limit the extent of social solidarity and advance essentialisms that contribute to the construction of marginality from the inside.